1. Field of the invention
This invention relates to the normalization of numbers for scale factor generation, and, in particular, to a technique that may be employed for left justification or normalization of binary, decimal or octal numbers.
2. Description of Related Art
Normalizing or scale factor generating networks have been used for many years to calculate the number of extraneous sign bits, or zero digits, in numbers for the purpose of left justifying, or normalizing, of numbers. These networks produce a count representing the shift count required to produce the required normalization. Both binary and decimal networks are commonly used for this purpose. There are occasions in which normalization to some grouping of bits other than one, two or four bit groups is required. If the grouping is other than a power of two group, then it becomes difficult to design a network to accomplish the desired function since the resulting count is usually required to be a binary count for application to a shifting network, and binary is a power of two system.